Godspell and Cake

This week I have been running like a chicken with my head cut off, seriously.  My oldest daughter has been practicing all summer for her role in the play called "Godspell."  Our church is very involved in Community Player's and decided to make this an all youth play.  Needless to say, the play has been an awesome experience for her and the performances are this week.  To top it off, I signed her up back in May for a cake decorating class at our local community college.  It just so happened the classes and the performances fell on the same week.  We have been running to class and church and oh I forget to tell you, softball try-outs are this week too.  What do they say about God never gives you more than you can handle!  Um, I'm there.

I am proud of how well she's handled herself this week and wanted to show you what she made at the end of her cake decorating class.  She was so smart and decorated her cake to take to the potluck at the end of the play tomorrow.  She decorated the entire cake herself  with a little help on the Good Job from her instructor.  I was impressed with what she learned this week and how well she did.  We now have a cake decorator in the family.

 

She was especially proud of the flowers she made all by herself. The colors are beautiful!



She used several colors to make the boarder, so creative.  I'm impressed how she kept her line so symmetrical.  Can you tell I am proud of her?



Her inspiration, the one and only Cake Boss. She watches every episode and even DVR's it so she doesn't miss anything.  She wanted one of his cakes for her birthday this summer, but it didn't happen. You never know maybe someday she'll have her own bakery. 

  Have you had one of these weeks this summer?

Where I've been....

Well "Hello" everyone!  Sorry I have been MIA for the last couple of weeks, but from what I see out there in blog land I am not alone.  Can I just say it is plain hard to find the time to blog during the summer.  The kids take up the majority of my time and if I dare start on a project it usually gets interrupted, but I am OK with it.  I am OK because I know the precious time with my girls is going to be gone before I know it.  I will have ALL the time to blog later, right?  Can I get an AMEN??  Life is passing us by so quickly and I don't want to miss any of it......but for the meantime, I wanted to share a little fun trip that we took as a family a couple of weeks ago. 

We are about 2 1/2 hours south of this little city named Chicago :)  My hubby's boss usually invites us up once a year to his boat up on Lake Michigan.  Do you know where I am going with this??  I bet so!   We were in Chicago for Spring Break, but this time it was a completely different experience. 

"What was I thinking!" 

Yeap, this is where we stayed with my husband's boss.  There was plenty of room inside with a master suite and spare bedroom each with their own head(boating lingo, really) or bathroom.  It had a full kitchen and the girls loved, loved the huge flat screen TV that came up out of the island.  The girls made it pretty clear that the boat had more TV's than we have in our house.......trying to be humble I just said "I know" 

Notice the fruit bowl on top of the TV?  When the TV is down it's the top of an island.

Here's the view in the morning right outside of the boat.  What a beautiful view!  On the left you see the John Hancock building and on the right is the newest high rise in Chicago, Trump Tower.  I just love architecture and Chicago is the perfect city for it. 

The girls on the dock pausing for mom to take another picture.

While I was taking a million pictures I got a couple names on some of the boats in the marina.  Hum....if I had one of these what would I name my boat??  I don't have to worry about that anytime soon that's for sure. 

This is not a post card!  It looks like one, no I took this while we were cruising down the lake.  The lake was beautiful today and the weather couldn't have been better. 

To the right of Navy Pier on the lake is a spot on the water called the Play Pen.  It's an area right along Lake Shore Drive and is surrounded by a breaking wall to control the waves coming in. It's the perfect location to dock your boat and just chill. His boss also has a jet ski on the back of the boat so we all had a blast jet skiing in the Play Pen. If your not familiar with Lake Michigan, the water temps are always cold. On that day the water was about 68 degrees, too cold for this mama! We didn't do a lot of swimming, but our youngest jumped in and quickly got back onto the boat.  

 After we spent the night on the boat we ventured into the city the next day. We visited Navy Pier and rode the Ferris wheel. We shopped at American Girl and had to make a pit stop at Garrett's Popcorn.  Chicago never gets old with all of the history and culture. I love the city and appreciate it that much more after each visit. Can't wait until next summer

Have you been to Chicago? Would love to hear all about it! 

How appropriate I snapped this picture off of Navy Pier on Lake Michigan a couple

of days ago while boating with my family in Chicago. 

Wishing you a wonderful 4th of July from Illinois!    

A little red, white, and blue

Here's a quickie, oh so easy 4th of July project AND it only cost 2 big ones. I was browsing through the Dollar Tree the other day and was thinking...what could I create for the 4th of the July? It had to be 

easy and cheap and here's what I came up with.

8x10 black frame and a holiday bag, that's all.

Subway art made easy

All I did was trace the glass from the picture frame and cut it out
to fit the frame.

Ta-Da, done...you gotta love how easy it was to create DIY art from
a gift bag.

I hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July! We are looking forward to

swimming, cooking out, and spending times with family and friends.

Happy Birthday America!!